2/27/2009

The man suspected of an early morning shooting rampage in south Walton County is sitting in jail tonight, refusing to talk to investigators.

That rampage left two people dead and three others critically wounded.(...)Neighbor Crystal Lynn says "he did come up to me one time and asked me if I was ready for the revolution to begin and if I had any immigrant in my house to get them out."

The victims were foreign nationals who appear to have been working in the U.S. legally.

Investigators say, at the time of the shooting, there were at least 14 other people in the one unit with the victims...all of Hispanic descent.

And where do you think he got this kind of idea, to start a "revolution" that involves killing "immigrants"? I'd wager it's from right-wing eliminationist rhetoric, the kind spewed nightly by people like Lou Dobbs.

Of course, since this guy isn't saying one damn thing to anyone, it's unclear whether these hate-spreaders are responsible, but given recent events and the escalating threats and paranoia of the far right, I'd wager good money that there's some kind of connection here.

This is why I encourage everyone to go read Dave Neiwert's "Eliminationism in America" series. We need to be able to identify this kind of hatred, and we need to be ready to stamp it out. We need to drop the pearl-clutching talk about the rights of those who encourage violence, and we need to start making these people responsible for what they start.

(...)I understand that many conservatives hate Coulter. I also think that there's nothing particularly conservative about that slur. But sometimes you see this shit, and when partnered with Michael Steele's crack, you have to believe that a significant portion of the GOP enjoys being the Party Of Macacca.

Go on, right-wingers. Spin this one away. Tell us how it's just a joke, and everyone needs to shut up and stop being humorless and thin-skinned. Tell us how us liberals are the real racists. Tell us how it's not an issue, how it's not racism, how it's not racist, soulless slimebag Coulter basically saying "all them dotheads look alike to me".

Do it, and I'll spit in your goddamn face.

I don't like Jindal at all because he's dishonest, a liar, a mendacious bastard, and untruthful, but I like you even less, Coultergeist. Why don't you just admit to being a performance artist out to make the conservatives look bad so I can get my blood pressure down to a reasonable level, hmm?

A spokeswoman for Bobby Jindal says the Louisiana governor didn't imply that an anecdote about battling bureaucrats during Katrina directly involved the governor or took place during the heat of a fight to release rescue boats.

Really now? So what part of this lie-fest doesn't imply the timing or Jindal's involvement?

During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I'd never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: 'Well, I'm the Sheriff and if you don't like it you can come and arrest me!' I asked him: 'Sheriff, what's got you so mad?' He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go - when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn't go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, 'Sheriff, that's ridiculous.' And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: 'Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!' Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people.

So what part doesn't imply that Jindal was involved, or that it was at that moment? The "ready to go" part? The "Congressman Jindal is here" part? Yeah, he's a liar, and so are you. You two are perfect for each other.

Anyhow, I'm not the first to notice this, but Jindal's a guy who spins folksy-sounding outright lies to support his "all government but mine is bad and evil" idiocy. He grins, and he beams, and he acts like all he has to do is make it sound good and people will eat out of his hand.

Remember that story Bobby Jindal told in his big speech Tuesday night -- about how during Katrina, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a local sheriff who was battling government red tape to try to rescue stranded victims?

Turns out it wasn't actually, you know, true.

Surprise, surprise. People had already dissected the story and found out it couldn't be true, considering that Jindal was in Baton Rouge, having recently evacuated, during the timeframe that he claimed he was in Nawlins pissing off DEM BUER-EE-O-CRATZ. Of course, this isn't going to stop the GOPpers - they're still going to claim it's really, really true, and that it proves the EBIL FEDROOL LEEBROOL GUMMINT is bad. (This overlooking that the federal help that he claims is the greatest evil ever was, at the time, headed by Republicans.)

I'm really wondering if any part of the story is true by this point. We know all he did was a flyover at first, that his story was an obvious lie, that he lied about it later in the Wall Street journal, and that he lied several other times during his speech.

2/26/2009

The Oklahoma House of Representatives passed House Joint Resolution 1003 Feb. 18 by a wide margin, 83 to 13, resolving, "That the State of Oklahoma hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States."

Holy crap! But wait, what does this mean? Apparently not much, actually.

The result? Pretty much nothing. It's basically a feel good measure for the reddest of all red states, to tell the 'gov'mit to b'k off.' Even though they won't follow through with anything about this bill. It sounds scary, it gets some attention, it makes the libertards feel important in big elephant, and is really nothing but conservative mental masturbation.

2/25/2009

Therefore, we need to hound him to show us his birth certificate, and then make outrageous claims about how it's obviously fake and he's really not eligible to be President when he inevitably runs, and claim he's really a secret foreign terrist agent.

Rep. Damschen responded (see below) to my invitation to join the Billion Spermatazoan-American March on Washington, and he wasn't very nice about it. I'm thinking he must be using all this zygote-American protection stuff as cover for some wickedness he's performing against our spermatazoan-American brothers. Here's my response.

Yes, as it turns out, the toolbox wasn't too happy about JC's letter. How unhappy was he, though? This unhappy:

When you get a chance, study up on the facts of life concerning how neither egg nor sperm develop life by themselves - the sperm has to fertilize the egg to begin the first stage of life - conception. No life has ever fully developed without first completing this stage. The body develops for approximately 9 months before leaving the womb and then develops for 9 -13 years to puberty, then continues to develop further and reaches adulthood by about the age of 18 -21 years, perhaps later in your case. If you destroy the developing body at any of these stages, development ceases and it dies. Taking the life of this developing person at its most helpless, defenseless stage of development while inside or partially inside the womb is called abortion.

Now you've received more of an answer than deserved. Read it carefully several times until you grasp the understanding of how and when life begins and how and when it ends.

Chuck DamschenND House of RepresentativesDistrict 10

Good idea: Having no sense of humor when someone says something serious.Bad idea: Having no sense of humor when JC writes something about you.

Honestly, he called you out and not only do you get all pissy about it, you actually get things wrong. Asexual reproduction. Mr. Damschen. Things do reproduce without conception. Furthermore, to top off this shit sundae, you act like a pissed-off troll who's about top storm out because nobody's falling for his bullshit. "More of an answer than you deserved"? How full of yourself are you?

2/24/2009

God, that fucker is creepy. Invoking 9/11 like Bush, lying, mentioning Hurricane Katrina as though the Repugs had any hand in making things better (which hasn't happened thanks to them), lying, pulling the "TEH LIBROOLS WANNA RAISE UR TAXES" shit, lying, actging like Rethugs did anything re: the stim other than stonewalling, lying...

Hang the hell on... did he refer to the people who disagree with him as something other than terrorist-supporting commies? Wow, that's refreshing.

And it's over already. It didn't feel like an hour, really. It's good to have a President who I can listen to for an hour without hearing endless mispronounced words, snickering, and attacks. It's good to be able to listen to our President without wanting to drink myself into a stupor or throw something through the TV.

Congratulations on the passage of your bill granting full civil-rights to zygote-Americans. It's a great start, but we both know it is only that, a start. Trillions upon trillions of our spermatazoan-American brothers continue to be murdered every hour in our nation. This tubesock holocaust must end.

Purity pledges aren't the answer. Men need to liberate the spermatazoan-Americans imprisoned within their gonads on a regular basis. Without such a release, A man's system gets backed up, causing him to slip into an O'Reillian state of constant, uncontrolled rage.

A law is needed to ensure that spermatazoan-Americans are cared for after their liberation. The law doesn't need to be burdensome--it should simply require men to liberate their spermatazoan-Americans into a mason jar they keep in a cool place (I use my cellar) until it can be transferred to a federally-funded Christian housing facility (built with stimulus money).

It goes on like this for some time.

I've always appreciated a good satire, and with folks like JC on our side, we've got one of the best. It takes a lot to act directly and not only write something like this, but actually send it to its intended target. And no, Damschen isn't happy about it.

I don't imagine that anyone is ever going to make serious inroads against idiotic, misogynistic legislation with things like this. Only a dreamer would believe that. But if we can get one person, just one, to think about how stupid laws like these are, then we've succeeded.

2/20/2009

Alan Keyes, a three-time presidential candidate, called President Obama a "radical communist" and a "usurper" and said with him in charge, America "is going to cease to exist" at a pro-life fundraiser Thursday.

Remember: This psychopath has run for Prez three times on a fringe ticket, and every time he's gotten nothing but scorn. Plus he lost to President Obama in the Senate race in 2004. And he's so much of a gay-hater that he threw his lesbian daughter out and cut off all support for her.

But how crazy is he? This crazy:

"He is going to destroy this country and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist,"

And this on the heels of a cartoon that not-so-subtly advocates violence against "the author of the stimulus bill"? Why is this man not locked up?

Oh, but it gets worse... so much worse.

"The man is an abomination," Keyes said, going on to accuse Obama of being supportive of infanticide. "That is a man with such a seared conscience, I can't even understand why anyone in their right mind would consider him worthy of political support."

Because clumps of cells are so much more important than, say, your own actual, born, grown children, whom you throw out because they're not perfect little straight godbots like you. You'll forgive me if I don't take moral advice from a hateful, paranoid, bigoted, insane bastard like you.

Oh, but it gets even worse than that. No, really.

Keyes also claimed that Obama had no standing to be president. Keyes said Obama was actually born in Kenya and so did not meet the Constitutional presidency requirements of being a natural-born U.S. citizen.

He said Obama was a "usurper occupying the office without constitutional warrant."

"He has refused to provide proof that he is in fact a natural-born citizen," Keyes said. "I'm not even sure he is president of the United States."

When the reporter interviewing him apparently cracked a smile at this, Keyes angrily responded with "that is not a laughing matter. We're going to find ourselves in the midst of chaos, confusion and civil war."

So let me see if I understand you correctly: You treasonously disregard the authority of the President because you honestly believe in a discredited, insane, baseless conspiracy theory, conceived by the fringe racist elements of the far-far-far-right, one that has already been disproven directly. It's so crazy, even far-right whackjobs like Michelle Malkin don't support it. Then, to top it all off, you threaten violence in regards to this, as though people will riot because you wish them to.

Listen closely, you slug: This has been settled. You are a jealous, whiny little punk who's still stinging that the state of Illinois saw right through your far-far-far-far-far-far-right lunacy and chose the right man for the job in 2004. You are a bigot. You are now, by your own admission, a traitor, as you do not recognize the laws of the United States, and are inciting violence against the President.

For your own sake, Alan, shut the fuck up. If you keep talking, you're going to say the thing that gets you thrown into jail for your bullshit.

2/19/2009

So, after yesterday's flap about the stupid, stupid cartoon in the New York Post and the reactions to it, I figured it'd be nice to follow up a bit.

First, even employees of the Post aren't happy about it. One employee said that the phone lines are jammed with people who are angry over the cartoon, "As they fucking should be". In fact, the Associate Editor has actually taken it up with her bosses:

Please know that I had nothing to do with the Sean Delonas cartoon. I neither commissioned or approved it. I saw it in the paper yesterday with the rest of the world. And, I have raised my objections to management.

--Sandra Guzman

I'm willing to take her word on this.

Second, stupid, privileged little punks should shut up about things they don't understand, and should stop trying to change the subject. Yes, Al Sharpton spoke about it; your hatred of him does not make this less of an issue. And so what if you don't think it's racist? Your opinion doesn't matter here, mine does.

Third, tantrum-throwing little racists who change the subject so they won't have to answer honest questions should shut up while the adults talk. If you're so sure of yourselves, address the issue instead of throwing a fit because people see you for what you are, you little fucks.

Rabid far-right commentator Ann Coulter is known across America for sliming everyone and everything she disagrees with.(...)But despite denouncing school desegregation as a "spectacular" failure, Coulter has generally avoided bolstering white supremacist hate groups. Until now, that is.

In her latest foaming-mouth tome -- Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America, released on Jan. 6 -- Coulter spends the better part of three pages defending a group called the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), which The New York Times had described as a "thinly veiled white supremacist organization."

Coulter begs to differ. The CCC, Coulter opines, is "a conservative group" that has unfairly been branded as racist "because some of the directors of the CCC had, decades earlier, been leaders of a segregationist group." "There is no evidence on its Web page that the modern incarnation of the CCC supports segregation," she says. "Apart from some aggressive reporting on black-on-white crimes -- the very crimes that are aggressively hidden by the establishment media -- there is little on the CCC website suggesting" that the group is racist. Indeed, its main failing is "containing members who had belonged to a segregationist group thirty years earlier."

(Emphasis mine)

So she carries the water of a well-known adjunct of the KKK, complete with breathless assertions that DEM NEEEGROZE IZ CRIMNULZ KILIN GUD WITE FOLKS.

Is anyone surprised by this? Anyone? I doubt it.

Sometimes I think the people who think she's actually a liberal who's trying to make conservatives look bad are right - then I realize that there are still people in the world who honestly believe this kind of crap, and I stop thinking that.

2/18/2009

The New York Post is standing behind a cartoon that some have interpreted as comparing President Barack Obama to a violent chimpanzee gunned down by police. The cartoon in Wednesday's Post by Sean Delonas shows two police officers standing over the body of a bullet-riddled chimp. One of the officers says the other, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

That they not only publish something that any idiot could see as a load of racist garbage, but stand by it, defending it and lashing out at someone calling them on it, should come as no surprise at all. Of course the Post is standing by this - it's a far-far-far-right rag owned by Rupert Murdoch. It's Fox Noise: Dead Tree Edition.

We're a long way from a post-racial America. I understand that. And people like this hack of a cartoonist, and the slime at the Post who publish and defend it, understand it, too. The difference is in how we handle it - I work to overcome injustice, while these people try to promote it.

What scumbags.

EDIT, 7:12 PM, 2/18/09: The Opoponax in the comments of Pandagon's post on this makes a good point:

Wait, so now it’s perfectly OK for the Post to advocate the assassination of the President?

This would have got somebody sent to Guantanamo if it were published circa 2003-2004.

The Washington Post added its voice Wednesday to a growing chorus of demands for the resignation of Sen. Roland Burris two days after he detailed conversations with impeached Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's brother that he failed to mention under oath.

Burris, appointed by a scandal-wracked Blagojevich to fill President Obama's vacant Senate seat, told reporters Monday night in Peoria, Illinois, that he had three conversations with the governor's brother, Robert Blagojevich.

In them, the Democratic senator said he discussed possibly raising money for the governor before ultimately declining to do so.

So, he talked with Blago's bro, then denied it, and now he's admitting to it. And the conversation was about fundraising for Blago. When I said that I didn't trust Burris, that something seemed off, nobody listened. Everyone acted like I was some sort of idiot, like I had a problem. Yeah, we'll start the ass-kissing with you.

Seriously, though, Burris should resign. His placement into the Senate has been under a cloud of suspicion from day one, and that cloud only grows larger and thicker with each passing day. People have resigned over less. It's time to do the honorable thing, Mr. Burris, and step aside.

An influential conservative political action committee is pledging to support primary challengers to any Republican senator who supports President Obama's stimulus package — the latest public show of dissatisfaction from the right over the massive measure before Congress.

"The American people don’t want this trillion dollar political payoff that will just line the pockets of non-governmental organizations who supported [President] Obama in the election,” said Scott Wheeler, the executive director of The National Republican Trust PAC, an organization that calls for less government spending and lower taxes.

2/08/2009

State Sen. Stephen Wise of Jacksonville announced through an article in the Florida Times Union that he plans to file a bill this legislative session to require evolution to be balanced with a discussion of intelligent design. Yes, require. Not just allow, but to require.

2/06/2009

"Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban," Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. "And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with."

That agreement, as Sessions described it, involved a promise from Pelosi to preside over an "open, honest, ethical Congress." Obama, Sessions added, has pledged to diminish the political rhetoric in Washington and work in a bipartisan fashion.

"If they do not give us those options or opportunities then we will then become insurgency of a nature to where we do those things that are necessary to making sure the American public knows what we think the correct answer is," Sessions said during the 60-minute interview. "So we either work together, or we're going to find a way to get our message out."

Bravo Rep. Sessions, bravo. The self destruction of the Republican party continues.

But more importantly, I can't shake this feeling that the last inflation to the bill we saw (bringing it to 930 billion), may have been so they could then cut less total than they would from the original, smaller bill, and get enough Republican support to pass it.

It's the same idea as a store upping its prices before offering a sale, except this would be done in the name of good, rather than evil.

2/03/2009

I picked up a copy of Thomas Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas? at Barnes & Noble over the weekend. It was on sale for a dollar because they were apparently desperate to clear out some old stock, including Susan Estrich's Soulless: Ann Coulter and the Right-Wing Church of Hate, which contributor Amber picked up, and Senator Al Franken's The Truth (with jokes) (which I also grabbed). (This is not to say that books of this type made up the whole of the sale lot - much of it was fiction I had yet to hear of. I guess if you're not writing what amounts to teenage-girl gushfests about sparkly vampires, you don't sell in this economy.)

I'm not even that far into Kansas and I'd recommend it. It points up how conservatives successfully married far-right "gut feeling" politics of the fire-and-brimstone variety to their disastrous laissez-faire economic ideas. And no, it's not just Kansas - sadly, it's much of my country that's been hoodwinked this way, my state included. I'm already seeing the parallels between the fools that Kansas elects and the ones that we do.